MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a Minneapolis driver on Wednesday during the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown on a major American city — a shooting that federal officials said was an act of self-defense but that the mayor described as reckless and unnecessary.
The 37-year-old woman was shot in the head in front of a family member in a snowy residential neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks from some of the oldest immigrant markets and about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from where George Floyd was killed by police in 2020.
Her killing after 9:30 a.m. was recorded on video by witnesses, and the shooting quickly drew a large crowd of angry protesters. By evening, hundreds were there for a vigil to mourn her death and urge the public to resist immigration enforcers.
The woman, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, had a 6-year old child, her mother told the Minnesota Star Tribune. Macklin Good described herself on social media as a “poet and writer and wife and mom” who was from Colorado.
Videos taken by bystanders with different vantage points and posted to social media show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots into the vehicle at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It is not clear in the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer and there is no indication of whether or not the woman had interactions with ICE officers before the videos started. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb nearby before crashing to a stop.
In another video taken at the scene, a woman, who described Macklin Good as her spouse, is seen crying near the vehicle. The woman, who was not identified, said the couple had only recently arrived in Minnesota and that they had a child.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described the incident as an “act of domestic terrorism” carried out against ICE officers by a woman who “attempted to run them over and rammed them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively, shot, to protect himself and the people around him.”
In a social media post, President Donald Trump made similar accusations against the woman and defended ICE’s work.
Local officials dispute the narrative
Noem claimed the woman was part of a “mob of agitators” and said the officer followed his training. She said the veteran officer who fired his gun had been rammed and dragged by an anti-ICE motorist in June.
“Any loss of life is a tragedy, and I think all of us can agree that in this situation, it was preventable,” Noem said, adding that the FBI would investigate.
But Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey blasted Noem’s version of what happened as “garbage” and criticized the federal deployment of more than 2,000 officers to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul as part of the immigration crackdown.
“What they are doing is not to provide safety in America. What they are doing is causing chaos and distrust,” Frey said, calling on the immigration agents to leave. “They’re ripping families apart. They’re sowing chaos on our streets, and in this case, quite literally killing people.”
“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I wanna tell everybody directly, that is bullshit,” the mayor said.
Shooting is fifth linked to crackdowns
The shooting marked a dramatic escalation of the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations in major cities under the Trump administration. The death of the woman in Minneapolis was at least the fifth linked to immigration crackdowns.
The Twin Cities have been on edge since DHS announced Tuesday that it had launched the operation, which is at least partly tied to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. Noem said they had already made “hundreds and hundreds” of arrests.
A large throng of protesters gathered at the scene after the shooting, where they vented their anger at the local and federal officers who were there, including Gregory Bovino, a senior U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official who has been the face of crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere.
“She was driving away and they killed her,” said Lynette Reini-Grandell, a local resident who was among those who filmed the shooting.
In a scene that hearkened back to the Los Angeles and Chicago crackdowns, bystanders heckled the officers, chanting “ICE out of Minnesota” and blew whistles that have become ubiquitous during the operations.
Governor calls for calm
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he’s prepared to deploy the National Guard if necessary. He described the killing as “predictable” and “avoidable.” He also said like many, he was outraged by the shooting, but he called on people to keep protests peaceful.
“They want a show. We can’t give it to them. We cannot,” the governor said.
Minneapolis Public Schools canceled school, sports and activities for Thursday and Friday, saying in a statement that the decision was “due to safety concerns related to today’s incidents around the city.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara briefly described the shooting to reporters but, unlike federal officials, gave no indication that the driver was trying to harm anyone.
There were calls on social media to prosecute the officer who shot the driver. Commissioner Bob Jacobson of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said state authorities would investigate the shooting with federal authorities.
“Keep in mind that this is an investigation that is also in its infancy. So any speculation about what has happened would be just that,” Jacobson told reporters.
The shooting happened in the district of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who called it “state violence,” not law enforcement.
For nearly a year, migrant rights advocates and neighborhood activists across the Twin Cities have been preparing to mobilize in the event of an immigration enforcement surge. From houses of worship to mobile home parks, they have set up very active online networks, scanned license plates for possible federal vehicles and bought whistles and other noisemaking devices to alert neighborhoods of any enforcement presence.
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Dell’Orto reported from St. Paul, Minnesota. Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, Ed White in Detroit, Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas, Mark Vancleave in Las Vegas, Michael Biesecker In Washington and Jim Mustian in New York contributed.